Frustrated by a lack of informed and honest review websites covering a wide range of electronic music, I write them myself.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Various - Deepwater Black: Inclonation Vol. One (Original TC Review)

Koch Records: 1997

(2012 Update:
This one again? I swear I've given this compilation more attention than anyone else. Or maybe it just feels that way since I've gotten a lot of mileage out of these tunes for one reason or another. Still a recommended CD if you find it super-cheap. And hoo boy, I really did get my geek on with this review, didn't I? No shame.)

IN BRIEF: Obscure tie-in compilation for obscure sci-fi TV show.

Far be it for us to occasionally review unknown EDM releases, but now we’re also covering unknown TV shows too? Hardly, but these Random Reviews do have a tendency to drag along quirky fun-facts from other fields. Here’s what we have in this case.

Deepwater Black - or Mission Genesis in parts American - was a short-lived Canadian-filmed TV series based on a trilogy of books written by New Zealander Ken Catran that aired in the latter half of ‘97. It holds the somewhat dubious distinction of being the first original series produced by the Sci-Fi Channel - ‘dubious’, because Sci-Fi Channel has an unfortunately long history of under-produced, somewhat cheesy original shows. On the other hand, this was at a time when television sci-fi was quite popular, so there probably wasn’t much harm in at least trying it. Just keep the cast small and unknown, the CGI special-effects video-game level (hey, it worked for Babylon 5’s first season, and that show went on to be critically hailed as one of the best sci-fi shows for most of the 90s), and your stories somewhat compelling for sci-fi, and you really couldn’t go wrong.

For what it’s worth, the show did have a strong premise: a sextet of young adults emerge from cryogenic sleep on a starship, discover they are in fact prematurely awakened clones designed to repopulate a decimated human population, and thus head back to Earth to do so, getting into adventures along the way. To the show’s benefit, the writers of the series decided to go the ‘bleak sci-fi’ style, which resulted in some fairly grim stories - when your backstory involves a virus wiping out the human race, how could you not? Oh, and irresistibly-cute Nicole de Boer was one of the leads (her pre-Deep Space 9 role - god, am I ever getting my geek on here…); even if the show was utterly lame, I could watch her any day!

Fortunately, Deepwater Black wasn’t lame, though it was obviously produced on the cheap and didn’t last long. Plus, it was just a little too youth focused. Mind, it’s understandable that it would be, as Canadian network YTV (no, I won’t tell you what that stands for - it’s really, really obvious) was a co-producer of the show, but that did effectively limit the potential audience since most teenaged sci-fi fans would have probably been more dedicated to shows like Trek, B5, or Xena anyway. Still, 13 episodes aired, and it’s retained cult status for the curious, at least at a level of any second-tier anime series.

Oh, and they also released a CD in conjunction with the show.

Actually, it was this CD that even clued me into Deepwater Black, as I saw it floating about in the racks at the music shop I worked for at the time. Naturally, my, er, ‘raver curiosity’ was intrigued by the tracklist. My manager seemed to be the opposite: “Oh yeah, that’s that show that has those kids with the funny hair,” he mentioned (huh?). I had no idea what he was talking about, especially so since Deepwater Black had been cancelled for a year by then, but any show that featured as varied names as The Prodigy, Delerium, Jonny L, and Gary Numan couldn’t be all bad, could it?

That’s the quirky thing about this CD though: aside from the Fred Mollin-penned theme song (Inclonation), none of these songs were ever in the series. Rather, and I quote from the liner notes: “These tracks do not necessarily appear in the Deepwater Black series, but do represent part of the producers’ dwb psyche.” Like, how, exactly? They were listening to these tracks while writing and filming the show? They just took the opportunity to make a kind of mixtape for fans of the show? Yet another excuse to milk an ‘electronica’ compilation (this was, after all, 1997)?

Still, even if you were to go with the cynical option, this is a surprisingly varied CD that manages to retain a decent spacey theme. The only track I’d really pin down as being an ‘electronica’ compilation cliché is Emperion’s Narcotic Influence; and maybe Delerium’s Euphoria (that one was getting all the promotional buzz on the heels of the album Karma), but the rest do manage to stand out from your standard ’97 ‘electronica’ glut. For instance, of all the Prodigy tracks to choose from, The Heat? Really? That’s… unexpected. Then you get spaced-out drum’n’bass from Jonny L’s Treading, Underworld cool-groove from Moonshine big-beat heroes Cirrus, the earliest of early productions from broken-beat producer Moonstarr (tripped-out acid jazz in Imperial Starr Cruiser’s case), underground hip-hop from Toronto act Mood Ruff… essentially a lot of psychedelic break-beats and chilled-out trip-hop to be had here. Then finally, of course, Gary Numan’s Metal - the original thirty-year old version. Talk about your musical swerves.

The association this CD has with Deepwater Black is fleeting at best (space-themed show - space-themed music?), but it’s a fine EDM compilation in its own right. Varied yet consistent, familiar tunes rubbing shoulders with overlooked gems, plus a sense that whoever did gather up these tracks, it was for a love of the music itself rather than trying to cash-grab with obvious hits. Granted, it’s yet another one of those releases that you won’t miss if you don’t pick it up (on the cheap, of course), yet nor will you be disappointed should you decide to check it out anyway.